TRUDEAU DEFENDS ALLIES’ MEETING ON NORTH KOREA

Both China and Russia will be integral to securing peace on the Korean peninsula, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau conceded Monday even as he defended the decision to leave the two countries out of this week’s international gathering on the perils posed by North Korea. Trudeau made the remarks after Russia became the latest to slam the meeting — taking place Tuesday in Vancouver and co-hosted by Canada and the U.S. — as a threat to peace efforts. China, meanwhile, has already derided as “Cold War thinking” the involvement of only those allies that supported South Korea during the Korean War. “There are always going to be different venues and different groupings happening, and I think a diversity of approaches is better than picking one lane and deciding that this is going to be the way it happens,” Trudeau said.